Education Maintenance Allowance

David Laws: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families how many and what proportion of 16 to 18 year olds have received education maintenance allowance in each year since 2001; and if he will make a statement.

Jim Knight: Education maintenance allowance (EMA) is available to learners aged 16 to 19. The number of learners in receipt of EMA in England since 2001 is given in Table 1.
	The proportions of 16 to 18-year-olds who have received EMA in each year since 2001 as a percentage of all 16 to 18-year-olds in England are given in Table 2.
	Provisional figures for 2007/08 show 46.3 per cent. of 16 to 18-year-olds participating full-time education received EMA.
	
		
			  Table 1: Learners in receipt of EMA in England since 2001 
			   Number 
			 2001/02 114,254 
			 2002/03 124,351 
			 2003/04 126,871 
			 2004/05 297,567 
			 2005/06 430,327 
			 2006/07(1) 528,403 
			 2007/08(1) 560,045 
			 (1) Learners who participate in more full-time education and E2E/programme-led apprenticeships will appear twice in these figures may have transferred from one scheme to another during the year. 
		
	
	
		
			  Table 2: EMA recipients in England as a percentage of 16 to 18-year-old population in England 
			   Percentage 
			 2001/02 6.2 
			 2002/03 6.6 
			 2003/04 6.6 
			 2004/05 15.1 
			 2005/06 21.6 
			 2006/07 26.3 
			 2007/08 27.8

Headteachers: Recruitment

Tim Farron: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families what assessment his Department has made of trends in headteacher recruitment from amongst deputy headteachers.

Jim Knight: The head teacher vacancy rate remains low and stable. The Department does not collect the numbers of deputy head teachers that move into headship. Our priority is to ensure that we have enough good head teachers, and that is why we provided the National College for School Leadership with £10 million to work with schools and local authorities right around the country to develop local solutions to find, develop and keep great head teachers. The College has been making significant progress in identifying ambitious teachers and helping them become heads and latest NCSL figures show that more than 1,034(1) head teachers took up their first headship post in England over the past 12 months. These were appointed from a range of roles including deputy and assistant heads.
	(1) This figure has been compiled by the NCSL based on 115 returns from LAs in response to the request (made in September 2008) for names and schools of all first time heads appointed in their area.